The jackpot is a millionaire. The ban on territorial continuity is as explicit as ever. Airlines will be able to choose two options, share 52 million euros, one over the other, or agree to perform the service with zero "compensation". The mechanism is insane. For the first time the Sardinian Region makes it explicit in a single announcement. Only the time frame changes: by December 27th, airlines will be able to make an offer, with a percentage reduction compared to 52 million, to try to conquer more routes and more money, while in January, by 31st, they will be able to overturn everything and accept the imposition of the public service burden to fly on Sardinian routes without compensation and without exclusive rights.

Flying compensations

This is all the contradiction of a system that most of the time is more concerned with the cash desks of the companies rather than the cost and the service offered to passengers. A profitable gain from the flying companies that turns into a regalia, first of a state and now a regional one. The mechanism of "compensation" is, in fact, notoriously an opportunity to give airlines money that is not actually owed precisely because most of the time there is really nothing to compensate. It is the procedure for calculating the cost of the service, provided for by European regulations, which prevents, or rather should prevent, earnings of a thousand and one nights for the ever weeping airlines.

Profit is prohibited

To understand how much these millionaire compensations are in fact an undue and unjustified gift, it is enough to re-read the Community rule: "This compensation cannot exceed the amount necessary to cover the net costs incurred for the performance of the public service obligation, taking into account the consequent revenues obtained by the air carrier and a reasonable profit margin '. In its regulatory extravaganza this time around the European Union was clear: the compensations must not exceed the net costs of the public service. Translated it means that the Member State, therefore Italy, and the Sardinian Region by ministerial delegation, must accurately measure the real cost of the service. In this case the unit of measurement is the cost of the hour flown.

Reasonable profit

The procedure involves adding up all the cost items, from fuel to personnel, from insurance to on-board catering, from handling to depreciation of the aircraft. To these items, then, a so-called "reasonable profit margin" must be added. The applied variable can fluctuate between 4 and 6%. In the last call, a "gain" of 4.7% is set. All this because Europe has established that for the islands, where the burden of public service is imposed, there are routes where one cannot and should not speculate. In reality in the past years the airlines "dialogued" unduly with the contracting stations to the point of "conditioning" the determination of the cost of the hour flown.

Amortization trick

In at least two cases, in the last two tenders, before the cancellation of the single tariff last year, the Region also published the cost analysis with the definition of "technical annex - territorial continuity of the Sardinia Region". It was easy to understand by what mechanism the costs of the hour flown increased dramatically. Not being able to raise “verifiable” items instantly, such as fuel or personnel, the costs of aircraft depreciation increased dramatically. In Sardinia, for example, depreciation compensation has been paid for a plane worth 50 million euros for years.

Passed off as new

In short, they were calculated as if they were more than new, given that the Air320 had prices under 40 million euros for a new aircraft. The reality is that Alitalia carried out that service with aircraft that had well exceeded 15 years of life, while the Ministry of Economy had established that that type of aircraft had a payback time of no more than seven years. In practice, with the offsets of depreciation, the Sardinian Region paid old planes for new ones. Once the mystery was discovered, the so-called "overheads", "miscellaneous expenses" and every generic item increased dramatically in order to keep the compensation skyrocketing, which were therefore unjustified and unjustifiable. The determination of the cost of the hour flown, therefore, is a key step, to which the "reasonable" profit of 4.7% must then be added.

Calculations gone

Of these analyzes, previously public, now there is no trace in any official document, quite the contrary. The Region, declaring that it did not have the skills for these analyzes, had decided, a year ago, to entrust an assignment outside, for which, however, there was officially no follow-up. It was precisely the excessive compensation, clearly unjustified, that led the European Commission to turn the spotlight on territorial continuity to and from Sardinia. Now, as if nothing had happened, unjustified "compensation-gifts" are proposed again precisely because the basis for calculating the hour flown, on which the cost of the tickets should be determined, already contemplates a "reasonable profit". It is not enough, not only is the Region preparing to distribute a lot of money to the airlines, but those resources will in fact be used to build a wall towards Sardinia.

Single tariff denied

The absence of the single tariff, in fact, will constitute a significant limit to the development of the island. Throughout Italy you will travel with equal conditions of movement between regions, while in Sardinia those who are not resident will pay exorbitant amounts. The result will be evident: tourists will go elsewhere, the tourist season will shrink instead of expanding and Sardinian emigrants will not be able to return home without suffering a bloodletting. Yet in the provisions with which the new tenders are announced, a provision is recalled as explicit as it is disregarded: the Law of 22 January 2016, n. 9, "Urgent measures for interventions in the territory" which had allocated 30 million euros in favor of the territorial continuity of air in Sardinia. The question is a consequence: why does the Region refer to that provision if the regional announcement then provides for the exact opposite, with the denial of the single tariff?

Improper use

In other words, an improper and repeated use of those funds could be configured given that the legislative provision speaks clearly: "In order to guarantee a complete and effective system of air connections to and from Sardinia, which allows the reduction of inconveniences deriving from the condition of insularity and ensures the continuity of the right to mobility also for non-resident passengers, the Sardinia Region is assigned the sum of € 30 million for the year 2015 ». Thirty million which then became in fact an annual allocation of the State through development and cohesion funds to contribute to the territorial continuity of the air of Sardinia.

Legal obligation

In that provision there is a passage as eloquent as it is decisive: "ensure the continuity of the right to mobility even for non-resident passengers". In practice, the device allocated the money so that the single tariff could be extended to the whole year, since it was then limited to nine months, excluding summer. Of all this has obviously been lost, given that the airlines want to have their hands free to be able to earn full hands on the island of Sardinia. The new announcement actually endorses this strategy, imposed and adopted after the companies communicated the unilateral and early revocation of the territorial continuity service. A tender, therefore, at risk, starting from the economic relations between the Region and air carriers. At stake, in fact, is the issue of the use of those funds intended for the application of the single tariff and above all those unjustified "compensations" that will constitute a serious problem for the official called to liquidate them.

Stretcher of 3,000 euros

Last note of this story: the tender was also put up for tender "the offer of a more favorable treatment for the rate applicable to stretched passengers". The carrier, according to the announcement, could also "offer" a fare equal to nine tickets to transport a patient on a stretcher. By applying the rates set this morning for a "non-resident", therefore a potential Sardinian emigrant, the companies could charge a stretched patient 3,042 euros for the Milan - Cagliari flight. Just having made this “monstrosity” possible in the context of a public service speaks volumes about a “service” that annihilates the island principle and cancels the rights of Sardinia and the Sardinians. In the skies of the island only business and discrimination.

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